


Ground Support

by Anonymous



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Confessions, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Welcome to the club, Vakarian." He raises his glass, and Garrus meets it with his own bottle in a rueful toast."To Shepard."





	Ground Support

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThreeWhiskeyLunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/gifts).



"Alenko." 

"Vakarian."

The marine doesn't raise his head, too absorbed in the glass in front of him. 

"Mind if I join you?" Kaidan shrugs, gesturing to the empty stool at his side. Garrus arranges himself awkwardly, folding long legs around the markedly human construction. He snags a bottle of turian brandy and pops the cap with his teeth. 

He doesn't bother with a glass. Tali can filter out another bottle. 

They drink in silence. 

"I wasn't mad, you know," says Kaidan. "I mean, not really. Not once I thought about it. Shepard was..." 

"Dead, Alenko. You can say it."

"...Dead. God, she was _dead_ and I'm not sorry I didn't join the crew for the mission against the Collectors, but I'm... I'm sorry I was an ass. We weren't together and you make her happy."

"Mmm, not so sure about that." Garrus knocks back another swig of the brandy, feeling the alcohol start to warm at the points of his mandibles. "We're not together either." 

Kaidan looks at him, and Garrus notices the funny little wrinkle between his eyes that he remembers from the human drunks at C-Sec. Human faces are good at that, different from Asari somehow; rolling and pinching, distorting absurdly in the course of displaying mundane emotions in a way that used to make him uneasy.

Not any more. He likes Shepard's contortions, even if he's seen precious few of them lately.

"But I thought you two were... y'know."

"When I got back to the Normandy she, mmm... let me down easy. Said she had a war to fight, and that she couldn't let, how did she put it? Her 'utterly fucked personal life' get in the way. You humans do have a way with words." 

Kaidan huffs a laugh. "Shepard does, at least."

"Welcome to the club, Vakarian." He raises his glass, and Garrus meets it with his own bottle in a rueful toast. 

"To Shepard."

***

Regret. Heavy regret, sunk like a stone in the pit of his stomach. Opening his eyes is a multi-step process, and it's not one Kaidan is enjoying. One eye, then two, blinking slowly until blur resolves into a lamp, a clock on a nightstand next to the bed.

Not his bed.

_Oh no._

He remembers last night. Most of it. The stories, the commiseration, the whiskey bravery. The fury in her face, her request - not phrased as an order, but one all the same - that they remain in her cabin for the night, rather than pouring themselves into the crew quarters. The ending is still a bit hazy but he's got the main themes and as the fuzzy shape on the couch nearby becomes Shepard, he discovers a new level of regret, somewhere far deeper, maybe somewhere in the region of the boots he's still wearing.

A groan behind him, multilayered and every one of them miserably hung over. Garrus, waking to regrets of his own. Judging by the measured look Shepard is giving them both from her seat at the edge of the couch, probably some of the same ones.

"When you have a moment, perhaps you'd like to explain to me what happened last night." Her tone is clipped, precise. Commander, not Shepard.

"We may have had a little too much to drink." Garrus manages to shove himself into a sitting position as he answers, and Kaidan, blessed with a biotic's resistance to the worst aftereffects of _a little too much to drink_ , follows suit.

"Oh, you may have had a lot too much to drink," says Shepard, "and we will be having a separate discussion on how much alcohol consumption is appropriate for two of my most senior crewmembers later." She leans forward, fingers laced together in a deceptively casual pose. "But I was thinking we could talk about why you two showed up at my door last night."

He winces.

"Specifically," she continues, "why you felt the need to inform me that you had forgiven each other for-" She pauses, mouth twisting bitterly. "For dating me."

Shepard is being diplomatic. The word they'd used had not been "dating" and while he's not sure about Garrus, he knows that it's a word that lives in his bones, carried within him every day. 

Just one he promised himself he'd never share with her again. Didn't want to complicate things. Telling your commanding officer you're still in love with her, never stopped loving her, even now that she's moved on, that's complicated.

He wishes it had been a little more complicated last night.

"Spirits, Shepard, I'm sorry." Garrus scrubs a hand over his eyes. "We never should have-"

"Shouldn't have, definitely. Did, though."

"I'm sorry, Shepard." His own apology is quieter, lodged somewhere under the lump in his throat. What had made so much sense last night is laid bare and wanting before them now, an offense. A breach of respect he's not sure he can bridge, not when he's spent the last year carefully trying to do just that. "That was inappropriate."

He's expecting agreement. He's expecting anger, or cold professionalism. A dismissal. Not the slump, the way her eyes look right through them.

"I'm sorry, too," she says, and it's tight, too tight, a stretched thread about to snap. "I'm sorry that I tried to save you the trouble, of, of-"

It snaps.

Kaidan has never seen Shepard cry before, and at that moment he hates Garrus, hates himself for ever bringing her to it. She's almost silent, shoulders shaking, knuckles white against her hair as she buries her head in her hands.

Kaidan isn't sure who moves first. Maybe neither of them do, maybe they're together in this, both rising at exactly the same time to close the short distance between bed and couch. Kaidan on one side, Garrus on the other, Shepard collapsing inward at the center.

It's fluid, natural. Garrus snakes an arm around her waist and Kaidan rests his cheek on the top of her head. Shepard just breathes, unsteady at first but calmer, gentler.

"I saw what happened to you when I-" She shakes her head. "The first time. I can't do that to you again, to either of you. I can't win this war if all I'm thinking about is how much I'm going to hurt you."

The implication takes a moment to sink in, but when it does, he can't speak. Instead, he closes his eyes and concentrates on her. The warmth under his cheek, the softness of her hair, the familiar way she smells. All the things that make up Shepard in his mind, the things he thought he'd never have the chance to feel again.

He's the luckiest man alive, and he's a dumbass for ever doubting that.

"You're going to win this thing," says Garrus. Shepard snorts.

"Hell yeah I am. Just… I'm not going to be there after the winning part."

"Bullshit."

That's enough to snap her head up, away from him, her face caught somewhere between misery and indignance. At any other time, it would have been funny.

Still kinda is.

"We're going to win this thing, and we're going to drag you along with us whether you like it or not. Isn't that right, Kaidan?"

"Sounds about right. We'll swoop in and save the day. Very heroic."

"I heard James has a Harvester we can borrow," Garrus drawls.

He feels her move, feels her lean. She's still pressed against his side but she's reaching, tentatively, pressing her face to Garrus' in something he can't quite see but is pretty sure is a kiss.

He'd prepared himself for this. Ran it over in his mind a thousand times before he stepped back onto the Normandy, poked at it until it hardly hurt anymore. Needed to be ready the first time he saw them together like this.

It doesn't hurt at all. He's maybe a little curious about what actually constitutes kissing, for a turian, but where he's expecting pain there's only warmth.

Shepard breaks off and Garrus' mandibles hang slack. He wasn't expecting that, and from the look on her face, Shepard wasn't quite expecting it either.

Then her lips are on his and he should have been expecting it too it but the thing he told himself so many times was lost is found, that warmth in his chest spilling over, all-consuming. She loves him. 

She loves Garrus, and Kaidan doesn't care. Right now he loves Garrus a little too, loves that someone in the galaxy cares about her, same as he does. Shepard could love a million other people but she still loves him and as it turns out, that's all he cares about. That she loves him and that she is loved, and that that love will carry her for as long as she needs.

"How do we even do this? How will we…" 

"We'll figure it out, Shepard."

Garrus' arm squeezes tighter around her waist, and Kaidan thinks he knows what that means. Hopes he knows, anyway. He meets Garrus' eyes over the bow of her head, and knows that it's true.


End file.
